Message Truth: Every believer needs the encouragement of others. God has designed His church in such a way that we are to give and receive this special ministry from one another. Today we will see this being played out in the life of the Apostle Paul. Hopefully, we will learn something new about this very important ministry. 1Ths. 5:11 Therefore encourage one another, and build up one another, just as you also are doing.

The Oval Office has to be the loneliest place in America. The only comfort the man has is that he is not unique. Every President who preceded him experienced similar struggles. Being the Chief includes that occupational hazard.

I was reminded of this recently when I read of a television program aired on PBS on that most staid of subjects -- a library. This, however, was the Library of Congress, and the PBS's former chairman, Sir Huw Wheldon, was standing in a forest of card index files. The program had all the makings of a slow-moving, dull documentary until....

About halfway through, Dr. Daniel Boorstin, the Librarian of Congress, brought out a little blue box from a small closet that once held the library's rarities. The label on the box read: Contents of the President's Pockets on the Night of April 14, 1865.

Since that was the fateful night Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, every viewer's attention was seized.

Boorstin then proceeded to remove the items in the small container and display them on camera. There were five things in the box:
A handkerchief, embroidered ''A. Lincoln''
A country boy's pen knife
A spectacles case repaired with string
A purse containing a $5 bill -- Confederate money (!)
Some old and worn newspaper clippings
''The clippings,'' said Boorstin, ''were concerned with the great deeds of Abraham Lincoln. And one of them actually reports a speech by John Bright which says that Abraham Lincoln ...

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